ANT. Hence, faucy eunuch; peace; She hath betray'd me, and shall die the death. MAR. Death of one perfon can be paid but once; And that she has difcharg'd: What thou would'st do, Is done unto thy hand; the laft fhe spake Then in the midst a tearing groan did break Between her heart and lips: fhe render'd life, ANT. MAR. Dead then? Dead. ANT. Eros, unarm; the long day's task is done, And we must fleep:-That thou depart'ft hence fafe, Does pay thy labour richly; Go.-Off, pluck off;— 3 Eros, unarm;] Old copy, in defiance of metre-Unarm, Eros. STEEVENS. 4 The feven-fold fhield of Ajax cannot keep &c.] This thought might have been taken from the Epiftle prefixed to Wit's Commonwealth, 1598: "Which neyther a feaven-fold fhielde, nor Pallas' Ægis can avoyde." STEEVEN 5 The battery from my heart.] I would read: This battery from my heart. JOHNSON. 6thy continent,] i. e. the thing that contains thee. So, in Hamlet: "You fhall find in him the continent of what part a gen tleman would fee." STEEVENS. I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and hand, And with our fpritely port make the ghofts gaze: Dido and her Æneas fhall want troops, And all the haunt be ours.-Come, Eros, Eros! 7 All length is torture:] Iftrongly fufpect that, inftead of length, our author wrote-life. STEEVENS. 8-Seal then, and all is done.] Metaphor taken from civil contracts, where, when all is agreed on, the fealing compleats the contract; fo he hath determined to die, and nothing remain'd but to give the stroke. WARBURTON. I believe the reading is: feel then, and all is done. To feel hawks, is to clafe their eyes. The meaning will be: In a former fcene we have: The wife gods feel our eyes "In our own filth." MALONE. The old reading is the true one. Thus, in King Henry V: "And fo, efpous'd to death, with blood he feal'd "A teftament of noble-ending love." STEEVENS. 9 Dido and her Æneas shall want troops,] Dr. Warburton has juftly obferved that the poet feems not to have known that Dido and Æneas were not likely to be found thus lovingly affociated, "where fouls do couch on flowers." He undoubtedly had read Phaer's tranflation of Virgil, but probably had forgot the celebrated defcription in the fixth book: Talibus Æneas ardentem et torva tuentem Dr. Warburton has alfo obferved that Shakspeare moft probably Re-enter EROS. EROS. What would my lord? ANT. Since Cleopatra died, I have liv'd in fuch difhonour, that the gods wrote-Sichaus. At least, I believe, he intended to have written fo, on the strength of the paffage immediately following the lines already quoted: conjux ubi priftinus illi Refpondet curis, æquatque Sichæus amorem. Thus rendered by Phaer, edit. 1558: where ioynt with her, her husband old, Sycheus doth complayne, and equall loue with her doth holde." But Eneas being the more familiar name of the two, our author inadvertently fubftituted the one for the other. STEEVENS. 9 — condemn myself, to lack The courage of a woman; lefs noble mind Than fhe,] Antony is here made to fay, that he is deftitute of even the courage of a woman; that he is deftitute of a less noble mind than Cleopatra. But he means to affert the very contrary;-that he muft acknowledge he has a lefs noble mind than fhe. I therefore formerly fuppofed that Shakspeare might have written: condemn myfelf to lack The courage of a woman; lefs noble-minded Than fhe, &c. But a more intimate acquaintance with his writings has fhewn me that he had fome peculiar inaccuracies, which it is very idle to endeavour to amend. For thefe the poet, not his editor, must anfwer. We have the fame inaccurate phrafeology in The Winter's Tale: 66 -I ne'er heard yet, "That any of these bolder vices wanted "Lefs impudence to gainfay what they did, I am conqueror of myself. Thou art fworn, Eros, Difgrace and horror, that, on my command, come: Thou ftrik'ft not me, 'tis Cæfar thou defeat'st. Again, in Macbeth: "Who cannot want the thought, how monsterous "To kill their gracious father?" Again, in King Lear, Act II. fc. iv. I have hope, "You lefs know how to value her desert, See Vol. VII. p. 31, n. 2; p. 84, n. 5; and p. 494, n. 5. The paffage in North's tranflation of Plutarch which Shakspeare has here copied, fhows that, however inaccurate, the text is not corrupt: "When he had fayd these words, he went into a chamber, and unarmed himfelfe, and being naked fay'd thus: O Cleopatra, it grieveth me not that I have loft thy companie, for I will not be long from thee; but I am forrie that having been fo great a captaine and emperour, I am indeede condemned to be judged of leffe corage and noble MINDE than a woman."-Inftead of " to be judged of lefs," which applies equally well to courage, and to mind, Shakfpeare fubftituted the word lack, which is applicable to courage, but cannot without a folecifm be connected with" lefs noble mind." MALONE. "Condemn myself to lack," &c. however licentiously, may have been employed to fignify-condemn myself for lacking even the courage of a woman. To mind, in this inftance, may be a verb, fignifying to incline, or be difpofed. So, in Spenfer's State of Ireland: When one of them mindeth to go into rebellion, he will convey away all his lordships" &c. There may ftill, however, remain a flight corruption-viz, noble instead of nobly. I would therefore read condemn myself to lack The courage of a woman; lefs nobly mind Than fhe, &c. i. e. am lefs nobly inclined than he is. STEEVENS, EROS. The gods withhold me! Eros, ANT. To penetrative fhame; whilft the wheel'd feat EROS. I would not fee't. ANT. Come then; for with a wound I must be cur'd. Draw that thy honeft fword, which thou haft worn Moft useful for thy country. 2 EROS. O, fir, pardon me. ANT. When I did make thee free," fwor'ft thou not then pleach'd arms,] Arms folded in each other. JOHNSON. A paffage very like this occurs in Thomas Kyd's tranflation of Robert Garnier's Cornelia, published in 1594: "Now fhalt thou march (thy hands faft bound behind thee,) "Thy head hung down, thy cheeks with tears befprent, "Before the victor; while thy rebel fon "With crowned front triumphing follows thee." STEEVENS. 3 His corrigible neck,] Corrigible for corrected, and afterwards penetrative for penetrating. So Virgil has" penetrabile frigus" for "penetrans frigus," in his Georgicks. STEEVENS. 4 His bafenefs that enfued?] The poor conquered wretch that followed. JOHNSON. 5 When I did make thee free, &c.] So, in the old tranflation of Plutarch: "Now he had a man of his called Eros, whom he loued and trufted much, and whom he had long before caufed to fweare vnto him, that he should kill him when he did commaunde him: and then he willed him to keepe his promife. His man drawing his fworde, lift it vp as though he had ment to haue ftriken his |